Photo Credit: Freeze Frame Photos

Led by four-point contributions from Landon Hill and Karsten Barbeau, the Soo Thunderbirds went on to down the French River Rapids 8-1 Sunday, October 11th in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League encounter held at John Rhodes Community Centre.

Some intense Thunderbirds pressure from the on set saw them begin the scoring just over seven minutes into the matchup.

On the tally, Barbeau collected his initial NOJHL goal as he stuffed in a Hill backhand feed from the end boards to beat Rapids’ starter and Sault Ste Marie’s Gavin Zuccato.

Still 1-0 Sault Ste. Marie into the second stanza, they added to their lead midway through the contest while skating four aside as Jaden van de Ven motored out of his own zone with speed, then dished the puck off to Barbeau, who went in on the left side and fired a feed back across to van de Ven who snapped it upstairs on Zuccato.

Countering quickly, French River’s Tristan Lavoie muscled his way into Thunderbirds territory and unleased a blast that Soo goalkeeper Nathan Maguire could not quite control, which allowed Félix-Antoine Huard to bury the rebound.

Answering back while shorthanded, van de Ven heaved one down ice from in deep that found Nicholas Carlson in behind the Rapids defence and had him drive right-to-left before depositing a backhand at 12:27.

The Thunderbirds kept it going and connected on a man advantage a couple of minutes later thanks to Hill who got just enough of an in-close chance to squeak it across the goal line.

With the tally, Hill extended a consecutive game point streak to five.

Moving to the final frame, the Soo put it out of reach when Hill banged in two more to notch his first career NOJHL three-goal game as well as register a natural hat trick.

His second marker saw him finish off a nice rush ahead by Barbeau before getting the last touch on his third as the duo collected their fourth point apiece in the outing.

Source: NOJHL